


I Don't Need to Breathe

by wheel_pen



Series: Alice [14]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Naughtiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:38:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice and Clark share their secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Need to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Alice, my original female character, is new in Smallville. There is something special about her, and she and Clark form a relationship.
> 
> 2\. This series starts after the end of the second season—after the destruction of the spaceship and Clark abruptly leaving town.
> 
> 3\. Underage warning: This story may contain human or human-like teenagers, in high school, in sexual situations.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

_~December, junior year_

            The roof beams weren’t going to hold much longer, but the debris had already blocked the one entrance Clark could see, and punching a new one would definitely be a display Alice couldn’t ignore… He hated situations like this, where he was forced to waste precious seconds debating how to save someone’s life without revealing his abilities. Already there had been times when he had chosen life with questions over certain death—the time with Lex and Earl Jenkins in Level 3, for example—and they usually turned out to give him lingering trouble.

            But this time the collapsing ceiling made the choice for him. Clark pushed Alice to the ground, covering her with his body, hoping that in the confusion he’d be able to throw off the falling objects and claim they were just lucky not to be hit. That usually worked, anyway. Alice was squirming underneath him, however, and with a surprising burst of strength she flipped them over, so that she was on top protecting _him_.

            Clark’s heart stopped in horror. He tried to turn them back, but the beams were right on top of them and then—he felt the sickening jolt of their impact through Alice’s body into his. _No, no, no!_ was all he could think, as if that exclamation would undo what he had seen, and his eyes widened in panic as the building momentarily stabilized. If someone he cared about died trying to save _him_ , when he of all people didn’t need saving—

            Clark shoved the beams off Alice’s back as if they were toothpicks and laid her out on the floor. “Alice!” he demanded, scanning her skeleton with his X-ray vision.

            Immediately she gasped in pain and started curling up. He kept scanning but, to his surprise, found no broken bones, no fractures. “Alice!” Finally she stopped moaning in agony and just lay there on the floor, panting for breath and staring at him in confusion. “Alice, are you alright?”

            Before she could answer, Clark heard the creak of more ceiling giving way, and this time he didn’t stop to debate. He just scooped Alice up and sped through a wall, back first, with enough force to dump them on the ground a good ten feet from the building. For a moment they said nothing, just looked back at the structure that imploded under the force of its own weight, sending jets of dust out onto the overgrown yard. Then Alice turned to Clark and asked, with some suspicion but no evidence of continuing pain, “How did you move so fast? And how did you get through that wall?”

            “How did _you_ not get hurt when those beams fell on you?” Clark countered indignantly.

            Alice bit her lip. “It _did_ hurt,” she pointed out, with some concern. “I’ve never felt anything like that, it was like my whole body was on fire.”

            Clark refocused his X-ray vision to see her skin—only to check for abrasions, he reminded himself, sticking to her back and shoulders. As soon as he began scanning, however, she screamed and twisted away. He blinked and ended the X-rays—and she stilled. “Oh, G-d,” she panted, starting to panic, “no, I can’t be hurt, I never get hurt—“

            “Alice!” Clark grabbed her hand and stared straight through to the bone, and she curled it up in pain. When he turned off the rays and looked back at her, a strange theory rising in his mind, her damp eyes were as big as his.

            “Cl-Clark?” Alice asked tentatively. “Wh-what were you doing?”

            “I was…” There was no way to explain it, except to say—“I was checking for broken bones. With X-rays.”

            “X-rays?” Alice breathed. She didn’t even know what question to ask for further information.

            “X-ray vision,” Clark told her, his heart fluttering like it did whenever someone began to comprehend his abilities. “I can see through things.”

            For a moment Alice was deathly silent. Then her expression turned frightened, and Clark could hardly bear to see it—she was going to pull away from him, accuse him of being some kind of freak, a monster—

            “I’m really strong,” Alice whispered. “I don’t get sick, and I don’t get hurt.”

            Clark blinked, not understanding at first. “Me, too,” he finally confirmed.

            “You pushed those beams off me like they were nothing,” Alice pointed out. Her eyes were searching his face as if she could read an explanation on it. All Clark could give her was a tight nod. “You broke through the wall—“

            “I can move really fast,” he confessed quickly, before he could change his mind. “Almost faster than people can see.”

            “I can, too,” Alice replied. They were just inches apart now, their hands intertwined as if they were each holding the only stable thing in the universe.

            “I can shoot, well, fire I guess, from my eyes,” Clark told her. “Heat vision.”

            Alice frowned. “I can make things catch on fire with my mind,” she revealed, then added a bit sheepishly, “Sorry about the barn. I’m sure that was my fault. Sometimes I can’t control it very well, when I’m distracted…” She broke off and blushed a little, remembering what exactly they had been doing that distracted her.

            The excitement running through Clark like an electric shock was inspired equally by discovering someone—not just _someone_ , but _Alice_ \--with abilities like his… and by discovering that Alice’s legs were close enough to touch with his, if he moved just an inch or so. “I don’t need to breathe,” he said, gaze dropping unconsciously to her lips.

            “I don’t either,” she replied, and they met him halfway across the few inches’ gap in an effort to prove how completely unnecessary breathing was.

            Alice broke off only when she heard a warning sound in the distance. She wanted to ignore it, because Clark was trailing his mouth down her throat and this time he wasn’t acting like she would break if he pressed too hard, sucked too hard, and there was an electric shock going through her, too, going straight _down_ in fact—but then the sirens drew closer and Clark pulled back to stare at the flashing lights racing down the road.

            “Someone must have called 911,” he decided, and the fact that he was panting when he didn’t even need to breathe, and that _she_ had made him do it, tempted Alice to say to h—l with rescuers and tumble Clark over in the tall grass. Unfortunately he was already pulling her to her feet. “Come on.”

            He was tugging on her hand, starting to run, starting to run _fast_ —and Alice picked up her pace and kept up with him. Clark gave her a little grin, as if he hadn’t quite believed she could do it, and in a instant they were safely concealed in a wooded grove half a mile from the demolished house and screaming sirens.

            Alice held her hand out in front of him. “Zap me with those X-rays again,” she suggested, and his stare was so funny—it just looked like he was concentrating _really_ hard. But then the burning pain shot through every nerve ending in her hand and she jerked away in a blur.

            Clark grabbed her shoulders. “Alice, I’m sorry,” he told her earnestly. “I didn’t know, I never—I don’t know why the X-rays would hurt you. Most people don’t even notice them.”

            “Well I guess that explains why I always felt awful near the X-ray machine at the airport,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his waist. Clark buried his face in her dark curls, hugging her to him in an embrace that would have crushed any other person he knew.

            “Clark?” Alice said after a moment, and he relaxed his grip instantly in case the “can’t get hurt” thing didn’t apply to his clinch. She didn’t let go of him, however, just stared up at him at an awkward angle. “I can fly, too.”

            A slow grin spread across his face. “Really?” he asked.

            “Can you fly?”

            Clark shook his head. “I hate flying,” he told her, still smiling. “I’m afraid of heights.”

            “Yeah?” Alice murmured, stretching up to whisper in his ear. “Then you better not look down.”


End file.
